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Troy Stolz: pokies and money-laundering whistleblower’s trial to continue next year

by Callum Foote | Dec 14, 2022 | Business, Latest Posts

Whistleblower Troy Stolz’s defamation trial against ClubsNSW has run overtime and will continue early next year as the Court hears evidence from Stolz’s former managers regarding bullying and harassment claims and the Clubs CEO’s attempts to enforce damage control in the wake of the Stolz revelations. Callum Foote reports.

After five days of gruelling cross-examination by counsel for pokies lobby ClubsNSW, Troy Stolz ended back in hospital on the weekend getting blood clot needles. The whistleblower has Stage 4 cancer. Meanwhile, NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has upped the ante in his efforts to introduce cashless gaming card reforms and ClubsNSW has threatened to campaign against MPs who support reform.

Labor opposition leader Chris Minns has continued to be criticised for refusing to take a significant position on gambling reform.

Stolz presented to the Maitland hospital emergency with chest pains, and shortness of breath and was treated for deep vein thrombosis. These were the upshot of complications related to the chemotherapy treatment he is currently undergoing.

He is suing ClubsNSW seeking damages for defamation as well as payments related to several workplace claims. Yesterday, Stolz’s lawyers questioned his former managers regarding Stolz’s employment status at ClubsNSW.

Today, Stolz’s managers at ClubsNSW are being cross-examined. One of these is Anne Fitzgerald the former executive manager of member services and marketing at ClubsNSW.

Fitzgerald personally hired Stolz as the organisation’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing compliance manager in 2017.

Bullying and harassment

Regarding Stolz’s allegations of bullying and harassment, Fitzgerald gave evidence that she felt Stolz was at fault. Fitzgerald recalled a conversation in which Stolz told her that he felt his direct manager Jim Terrie was bullying him.

“He can’t trust me, and doesn’t have confidence in not checking everything I do” Troy reportedly said “He talked over the top of me, not interested in any performance indicators”.

“Stolz made reference to him being yelled at as well,” Fitzgerald said.

According to Fitzgerald, during this conversation when asked about specific instances of bullying, “Troy was giving an answer and it went for way too long, and way off topic. He also said that he can ramble on. It was actually an admission that he was at fault” regarding his altercations with Terrie, she said.

“It became clear he was after redundancy. It was less about Jim Terrie and more about him wanting redundancy. I said Troy, the position is not redundant, so it won’t be a redundancy. You have choices to make in terms of your career”.

Fitzgerald couldn’t confirm that she had directed Stolz to any bullying and harassment policy that he could avail himself of or follow up on the issue after this instance.

Ring-fencing whistleblowers

Fitzgerald was also questioned on the apparent “ring-fencing” of Troy by following ClubsNSW.

When Stolz found work with an anti-money laundering compliance company Initialism following his resignation at ClubsNSW, his former employer spoke with Stolz and his new employer which, Stolz claims, hampered his performance in the new role.

Fitzgerald gave evidence that in late 2019 “ClubsNSW was conducting an internal investigation into Troy Stolz. I wasn’t at liberty to provide any additional information. But I was aware that Troy was due to be at our conference. I wanted him to know that this was afoot.” Fitzgerald told Stolz that he was banned from the ClubsNSW conference.

Fitzgerald read out an email she sent to Stolz’s new boss Neil Jeans which stated, “As you can imagine we cannot now support any company that Troy is offering” and thanked Jeans for banning Stolz from working in NSW “I believe you have informed Jim [Terrie] for not using Troy in NSW Clubs and I thank you for that.”

This was a part of a deliberate plan initiated by the former ClubsNSW CEO Anthony Ball to ice Stolz out of NSW: “Guys anyone who is happy to work with Mr Stolz knowing what they know isn’t for us. We need a plan to deal with them” an email read.

Feds to step into Troy Stolz case after ClubsNSW hammers pokies whistleblower for four days

Australian Government Solicitor

Following reports here last week, the Australian Government Solicitor has not become involved in the matter this week over concerns of parliamentary privilege being breached.

The AGS, the federal government agency which provides legal advice to the federal government and its agencies, was expected to stop the proceedings yesterday concerned that ClubsNSW was wrong in its claim that Stolz had breached confidence by informing MP Andrew Wilkie about money laundering in clubs. It had written to the parties expressing concern last week.

In October, Federal MPs voted to ensure that parliamentary proceedings were protected in the legal action launched by ClubsNSW against Troy and his wife Dianne Stolz.

Communications with a Member of Parliament are privileged and Stolz’s lawyers signalled that they may be making a submission regarding whether ClubsNSW had breached this privilege in their defence against Stolz.

The Privileges Committee has warned that the Federal government may step into proceedings brought forward by ClubsNSW if the organisation violated parliamentary privilege.

“The Committee considers that the most appropriate course of action is for the Speaker, as the representative of the House, to take steps to ensure that the interests of the House are represented in this matter before the courts” concluded a Committee report from 2021.

ClubsNSW, in a separate case, alleges that Stolz broke his confidentiality obligations by sharing proprietry information with journalists and anti-gambling MP Andrew Wilkie when he blew the whistle in 2020.

ClubsNSW has brought up the breach of confidence issue throughout these proceedings in its cross-examination of Stolz.

Andrew Wilkie, the independent member for Clarke in Tasmania, is himself a whistleblower. In 2003, Wilkie resigned from Australia’s intelligence assessment agency the Office of National Assessments as it was then called in protest over the looming invasion of Iraq.

Wilkie’s office will not comment publicly on privileges matters as the MP has now been appointed to the parliamentary privileges committee.

The hearing has run overtime and three additional hearing days have been scheduled for February 2023 with final oral submissions to be finalised early next March.

Gaming the Machine: pokies bosses to sign up politicians Perrottet and Minns for another 4 years

Callum Foote

Callum Foote was a reporter for Michael West Media for four years.

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